Alacrity
by The Shadeling
Summary: Toni struggled to breath as the rope tightened around his throat and dragged him up off the ground. A ghostly voice came from the darkness, "Who is this little rat who dares disturb my home?" A new stagehand comes to the Opera House. Eventual Erik/OC. More based on the musical than the book, but I've got a handy friend to help me do some blending.


Chapter One

On a average morning in Paris, the streets were calm and relaxed. There was no noontime fervor, nor evening merrymaking to disturb the relative peace of the city.

Not so calm were the inhabitants of the Opera Populaire, finest opera house in all of Paris. Ballerinas stretched and fussed, trying to remember all the steps, while choirgirls ran amok, humming through scales and arpeggios frantically. Costumers were a flurry of last minute hems and patches, a whirling tornado of pins and fabric. Actors screamed at their counterparts who dropped lines, while the musicians struggled to tune their instruments in the cacophony. The managers groaned into their hands while those who'd been at the Opera House since before the fire stood like the eye in the storm. The distressed commotion of opening night preparations was as familiar to them as a lullaby.

It had been six years since that terrible night, when fire engulfed the Opera House and the chandelier crashed down into the audience. Many had died, many more were injured, and the Opera Populaire had only just begun its recovery. The new managers (as André and Firmin had retired shortly after the fire) had been tasked with the disheartening quest for new staff. Several musicians had been killed in the fire, and many more simply refused to continue working in a place where so many ghosts haunted them. The same was true of the actors, dancers, singers, down the line to the lowly stagehands. Almost as troublesome as searching for a new star to grace the Opera Populaire's stage was finding a capable man to replace Joseph Buquet's specter as chief stagehand. After all, no matter how beautiful a soprano's voice or tragic an actor's performance, it all means naught if the stage is not set as perfectly as the performers. So, they searched and searched until they found a man by the name of Simon LeFebvre. Simon had worked with some other, less known theatres behind the scenes and all reports of him ended favorably. The managers quickly wrote up a contract and satisfactorily checked that task of their ever-growing list of things to do.

Simon eyed the small group of street urchins before him and sighed quietly to himself. A group of boys between seven and twelve years, they looked about as useful as a goat in petticoats. And he had to cobble them together into a crew that could pull together a set without throwing each other from the rafters. Already, some of the boys were starting to needle each other, jabbing elbows into thin ribs. One boy in particular, small and with a sun-darkened complexion, was quickly learning the tricks of getting out of the way.

"Alright, alright, now listen up, cuz I'm only gonna explain myself once. You all work for me, and that means you do what I say. Now, see these ropes?" He gestured to the backstage area, where hundreds of ropes stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Even more ropes connected to unsteady planks of wood and small levers along the walls.

"Which ropes, sir? 'Fraid I'm not sure which ones you mean." Simon rolled his eyes to the redecorated ceiling. There was always one...

"What's your name, boy?"

"Marceau, monsieur."

"You got a last name, _boy_?"

"'Fraid my whore mother forgot to tell me before she got gutted in the streets." Marceau shrugged nonchalantly. Such was often the fate of the ladies of the night.

"Come here, boy." Marceau strode forward with a swagger. Simon nodded at the rope closest to him.

"Grab hold."

Marceau did with an arrogant shrug.

"How old are you?"

"Eleven."

Simon kicked a small lever over. The taut rope suddenly shot up as the counterweight fell towards the ground, dragging a startled Marceau up a good six feet before he had the sense to let go of the rope. He dropped to the ground with a thump and Simon kicked the lever again, stopping the rope.

"That's what happens to whores' sons who don't pay attention in class. This entire theatre is a death trap waiting to be sprung on little boys like you. Hell, look what happened to the last chief stagehand. Fell from the catwalks and got strangled on the way down."

"That ain't right," one little boy piped up. He looked to be about nine. "It was the Opera Ghost what killed him."

"What are you, a baby," one of the bigger lads quipped. "Ain't no such thing as ghosts."

"That's right. There's no ghost here. Just stupid boys who get caught where they ain't suppose to be," Simon didn't care for the rumors that the older crew whispered about the so-called Phantom of the Opera. Superstitious nonsense, he believed, and it did no good for the boys to hear such tales. It would take their eyes from their task, which was as good as a pistol to the head for a stagehand.

"Now, one thing you've gotta learn is how to scramble up and down these ropes. We got ladders, and that'll get you through most productions. But, sometimes a scene has to change too fast, sometimes things just go wrong. Knowing how to use the ropes could save your sorry little hides." He scanned the boys, then pointed at the dark-skinned on. "You, what's your name?"

The boy startled, just a bit. "Antonio Ciresi, monsieur." Simon beckoned him forward.

"Who can guess the most important part of climbing a rope?" The group shuffled awkwardly and Antonio rubbed his nose anxiously.

"Don't let go," Marceau offered sardonically.

"Yes! Exactly. Unless you know exactly how and where you're landing, never let go. Grab hold."

The boy looked at the rope, down at the lever, then back at Simon. "I don't want to fly, monsieur."

"I ain't gonna send you up, boy. You've all gotta learn how to get up on your own."

Antonio gave him another wary look before wrapping his hands around the rope, about eye-level.

"Higher, boy. You think you can pull yourself up a twenty-foot rope like that? You'll need all the leverage you can get."

The boy complied with a roll of his eyes. Marceau smirked. Simon continued with his instructions, "Now, hop up and catch the rope with your feet."

"What?"

"You heard me."

Antonio did a little hop but didn't get his feet up in time before he fell back down. The other boys snickered. Simon waited. It always took a time or two for the mechanics to connect with natural instincts but almost all children grasped it with the startling alacrity of youth. The boy tried again. This time, his feet clicked together around the rope and he was up. "There, well done. Now, all you do, is hop up and move your hands. See if you can't get three more hops up. Don't worry. If you fall, I will catch you." The boy looked around from his perch. He wasn't more than a few inches off the ground, but he already seemed fascinated by this new height. He adjusted his grip carefully, then hopped up another few inches. Readjust, then another hop, this one a hair quicker then the last. He struggled to readjust this time, his arms already tiring from the excursion. "That's it, boy. One more hop, then you can come down." Antonio looked down at the ground, then back up at the catwalk above him. For a moment, he could have sworn he saw the briefest flash of white above him in the darkness, but it was gone as fast as he could blink. He blinked again then gathered his strength for one last jump. With a grunt, he clambered up, pulling himself up, panting as he straightened out.

"Good," Simon called up. The boy-Antonio, he reminded himself- had made it up farther then most boys could. The stagehand had a feeling he'd be quite the rascal once he could get up to the catwalks. "Now, there's two ways to get down. You can either slide your feet down and crawl down like a caterpillar. Or, you can just relax your grip and let gravity guide you down. I don't recommend that one, though, until you've got a good pair of gloves. Else you'll burn bloody strips across your hands."

The boy looked around and met Simon's hazel eyes. Antonio had dark, dark eyes, Simon noticed. In a few years, those dark eyes would have the ballerinas all a twitter. "_Tre_, _signore_," the boy called back.

Simon blinked. Well, that explained the darker skin. "Pardon?"

"Oh, sorry, monsieur," the boy flushed at his slip into his native Italian tongue. "Three, I meant to say."

"Three what?"

"Three ways to get down off a rope." With that, the boy jumped off. He was perhaps two feet off the ground, so only a true idiot could have seriously injured themselves from such a short fall. However, not all boys would've known to land softly on the balls of their feet, allowing their knees to bend and absorb the shock. Antonio stood with a clownish flourish and the boys laughed, particularly Marceau. Simon tilted his head at the small boy.

"Were your parents acrobats, little Toni?"

The boy gave an almost sheepish grin. "Well, my mother was well-known for her flexibility, but I don't think that's what you meant, monsieur."

Another whore's son, then. Huh, an instinctive reaction then. Yes, this one would be a real pain in the ass, a true rafter-rat. All the best stagehands were. Simon shook off the smile that was threatening to reveal itself and instructed the next boy to try the climb.

Marceau approached the boy and offered his hand. "Marceau."

Toni took it. "Toni."

And thus a friendship was born in the dark backstage, observed by none but a black-cloaked figure high above their heads.

**Author's Note: Hello! First Phantom fic here. The character Simon LeFebvre is very loosely based on Simon Buquet who is Jacob Buquet's brother in the book. I dunno, I needed a new chief stagehand.**

**Marceau is pronounced "Mahr-so", Ciresi is "suh-REES-ee", LeFebvre is "luh-feb". Read and Review! Just a heads up, this story is going to be sloooooww to update. I just started college and I have other stories that I'm working on, but I love and crave feedback. So! You want faster updates? Inspire my muse with feedback! And, no, this is not going to be a virtuoso OC, for those that are fearing a Christine Part 2. Not to diss on virtuoso OC's, but it's just not this character. **


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